Prue Leith, renowned chef and television personality, has recently shared a series of amusing and somewhat excruciating anecdotes involving royal encounters in her new memoir, *Being Old and Learning to Love It!*. The esteemed former judge of *The Great British Baking Show* has candidly recounted three moments where her experiences with the British royal family did not go as planned.
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At 86, Leith reflects on these blunders with humour, noting a peculiar tendency for chaos when the royal family is involved. In an interview with *PEOPLE*, she quipped, “I actually think there’s something about the royal family, they jinx things. People get quite overexcited at the thought of them, and then everything seems to go wrong.” Such anecdotes have become a staple in catering lore, as many in the industry can attest to some unexpected drama when dealing with royal requests.
One particularly memorable mishap occurred in 1986, during the opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster. Leith’s catering company had been entrusted with providing refreshments for the occasion, and she was tasked with serving Queen Elizabeth herself. Unbeknownst to her, the Queen had specific preferences for her tea, which led to a rather awkward encounter when Leith found herself unprepared. As she fumbled to create a cup on the spot, she ended up presenting the monarch with a “weak lemony tea served by a half-wit.”
Leith’s regret is palpable as she reminisces about this experience. “Personally, the thing that upset me most was not giving the Queen a decent cup of tea,” she recounted. “I thought, ‘Poor bloody woman. She’s been walking around this extremely boring building for two hours… By the time she got to me, she must have been absolutely panting for a cup of tea, and I failed completely.’”
However, it is her experience with Princess Margaret that Leith considers the most disastrous. In the late 1960s, when the Countess of Snowdon dined at Leith’s restaurant, chaos ensued. The head waiter on duty was particularly pretentious, insisting on serving the princess a roast pheasant instead of her requested venison casserole, despite it not being part of the menu. This refusal led to a string of calamities, culminating in the staff kitchen catching fire when the head waiter attempted to refill a flaming lamp.
Leith, busy preparing fish for the team’s dinner, found herself in the improbable position of patting down the burning waiter with flour-covered hands. “It was one of those moments where everything just spiralled. There was flour everywhere on his black uniform,” she recalled, shaking her head at the memory.
Beyond this chaotic meal, Leith shared another near-disaster involving Princess Margaret soon after she completed her culinary training. Tasked with preparing lobster and caviar for the royal, she quickly realised she had never cooked lobster before. Just when the situation seemed dire, a butler intervened, ensuring the meal was salvaged before it reached the princess.
While Leith’s dining service debacle was a comedic disaster that extended longer than she would have liked, she explained the lengths she went to salvage the appearance of her restaurant. “The restaurant was empty; I had to marshal waiters to try and look like customers,” she recounted, describing how she orchestrated an elaborate ruse to give the impression of a busy dining establishment.
Fortunately for Leith, Princess Margaret returned to the restaurant at a later date with friends and enjoyed a smooth dining experience. This incident, against the backdrop of her royal experiences, highlights how unpredictable and humorous the world of high-end catering can be, especially when the royals are involved.
Leith’s memoir, *Being Old and Learning to Love It!*, captures these stories amongst others, revealing not just her culinary journey, but also the awkward but often funny realities of working in the upper echelons of society. The book is widely available for those interested in delightful tales from the kitchen and beyond.
Through her candid reflections, Leith provides a unique perspective on the peculiar pressures of catering to royalty and the whims of the haute cuisine world, wrapped in the cheerful spin of her own personality. Her encounters serve as a reminder that even esteemed professionals experience moments of levity and absurdity in their careers.